Couscous salad with pomegranate and yoghurt-feta dressing

This is as delicious as it sounds! Believe me, this was one of our launch weekend highlights! The salad is fresh, fruity and savory at the same time. No matter if it´s served as a side dish or as a main course, somehow it will always play the main role:-)

While it accompanied our lamb racks quite well, it is also a perfect “take to work” meal, which you could prepare the night before going to bed. The durum wheat satiates and can be prepared in all kind of combinations. The yoghurt feta-dressing gives it a nice edge. For anyone who can´t eat milk products, you can simply leave the dressing and the salad will still be juicy, due to the pomegranate seeds.

Couscous salad with yoghurt-feta dressing (and tomato-eggplant salad)

Which brings me to the pomegranate: If you ever seeded a pomegranate you know how difficult this is. It takes sooo much time and you almost need to take out the seeds one by one.
My father said he knows a good trick: He cuts the pomegranates in halves and by tapping on the closed side the seeds would fall off the fruit almost by themselves. This fresh cooking
tip had to be tried! I tapped and tappped….and tapped…and not so much happened. Okay, some of the seeds fell out…but I still had to remove most of them the usual way…What did I do wrong?

Dad, please advise!

While I am writing this blog post I googled the whole thing again: “How to remove pomegranate seeds” and I found this video:

Looks really simple! Next time I am seeding a pomegranate I will definitely try it myself. If you will prepare this salad please let us know if the trick worked, ok? Here´s the recipe:

Recipe for couscous salad with pomegranate and yoghurt-feta dressing*

Ingredients:

For 4 persons

For the couscous

300 gr instant couscous

540 ml vegetable stock

9 Tbsp lemon juice

2 tsp Ras el Hanout (oriental spice mix)

2 pomegranates

3 Tbsp pumpkin seeds

2 bunch of mint

4 Tbsp olive oil

Salt

For the yoghurt-feta dressing

300 gr yoghurt

100 gr Feta cheese

2 Tbsp lemon juice

Zest of 1/2 a lemon

1 bunch of mint

Salt and white pepper

What else you need:

Plastic gloves to peel the pomegranate

Mix the yoghurt with the feta until it becomes a homogeneous mass

Grate some lemon zest and add it to the yoghurt-feta mix

Chop the mint in fine stripes

Add the mint, salt, pepper and lemon juice to the yoghurt-feta mix

Boil up the vegetable stock and mix it with the Ras el Hanout and the lemon juice

Pour over the couscous and let it soak for about 8 mins. Stir with a fork from time to time.

Open the pomegranates and release the seeds

Roast the pumpkin seeds in a pan without adding oil

Rinse the mint, dry it a bit and pick the leaves

Mix everything with the couscous and season it with salt, lemon juice and Ras el Hanout until you like it!

Serve the dressing aside.

We served the couscous in something like a tarte form. It looked really nice to spread the couscous on such a big plate!

* We found the salad recipe on www.brigitte.de. The dressing was our personal match;-)

About FoodFamily

We love food, we love to cook and we love to talk about it!
When our family comes together, sharing a meal is our way of celebrating the reunion. For some reason almost every one in our close family has a special interest in good food, many of us like to create it, some of us prefer to ...